Where does Southeast Asia fit within the MAGA worldview?
US President Trump and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement behind him will overlap uneasily with Southeast Asia’s foreign policy orientation.
Since returning to office, US President Donald J. Trump’s attention has largely been consumed by conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, as well as by an effort to rebalance global trade through tariffs. At home, Trump has acted with urgency to advance his domestic reform agenda and target his political enemies.
Amidst this early burst of actions, Trump has not focused considerable attention on Southeast Asia. To the extent the second Trump administration has focused on Southeast Asia, it has been through cabinet-level visits to underscore the region’s growing importance and trade negotiations to demand that countries in the region grant more economic benefits to the US.
This all begs the question: how does Southeast Asia fit within the Make America Great Again (MAGA) worldview? And what does that tell us about America’s goals in the region in the coming years?
Trump prefers to deal directly with his foreign counterparts rather than meet with them as a group. He only travelled to one ASEAN summit during his first term. He likely will not be a regular participant in such convenings during his second term.
A MAGA worldview
Recognising that there is no universally accepted definition of a MAGA worldview, there are broadly accepted grievances that serve as sources of cohesion. These include a sense of loss of American national prestige, wealth, and confidence, as well as disenchantment with globalisation and its effects on American workers. There is a strong conviction among MAGA supporters that America must stop underwriting a rules-based international system that they blame for hollowing out the US, in particular, its economy.
The foreign policy manifestation of such MAGA tendencies is an America sceptical of globalism and multilateralism. Trump and his supporters view multilateral institutions, rules, and norms as eroding US sovereignty and constraining America’s freedom of action to maximally exercise leverage in pursuit of national objectives.
Trump and his supporters believe the US will gain more benefits by leveraging American power to compel smaller states to bend to its will in bilateral negotiations than it will by participating in multilateral negotiations to manage or resolve international challenges. Trump prefers to deal directly with his foreign counterparts rather than meet with them as a group. He only travelled to one ASEAN summit during his first term. He likely will not be a regular participant in such convenings during his second term.
A second key tenet of the MAGA worldview is economic nationalism. In this view, trade deficits are a drain on national power. Trump views it as his responsibility to use all levers of power to maximise economic gains for the US, even if doing so alienates traditional partners.
Under Trump, foreign counterparts are viewed foremost in relation to their trade balance with the US, and then secondarily in relation to how they can help or hinder America’s efforts to outcompete China. He and his supporters view any foreign country that runs a trade surplus with the US as cheating the country and diminishing American strength. They see China as merely the largest of many culprits.
Trump has presented his global tariff campaign as an effort to redress past wrongs that prior American presidents were too timid or weak to fix. He has argued that he is doing nothing less than trying to save the US. Given the export-heavy nature of many Southeast Asian countries’ growth models, Trump’s tariffs have landed heavily on most countries in the region.
Trump has also pledged that America would no longer intervene in other countries’ national affairs or seek to impose its values on other countries.
A third pole in the MAGA worldview is deference to sovereignty. MAGA advocates, Trump chief among them, believe that national cohesion requires strong control over national borders. Trump views it as his responsibility to prevent global challenges from spilling into the US. Likewise, Trump has also pledged that America would no longer intervene in other countries’ national affairs or seek to impose its values on other countries.
Those who stand for nothing, fall for anything
Trump and his supporters do not champion democracy, human rights, or fundamental freedoms. They do not support military interventions that champion such principles. Rather, they associate such efforts with their political enemies, so-called globalists, neoconservatives, and liberal non-profit organisations.
In some respects, Trump’s political ethos of non-intervention could resonate in parts of Southeast Asia that resent American moralising and democracy promotion. Trump’s aversion to nation-building through military force may also gain support in parts of the region with bitter memories of US interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere.
On the other hand, following Trump’s abolishment of USAID, countries in Southeast Asia that traditionally have benefited from American development and disaster assistance will no longer receive such support.
Trump likely also will respond more aggressively to counter transnational crime, drug trafficking, and scam operations emanating from the region that harm American citizens. For Trump, these issues relate directly to his pledge to uphold American sovereignty.
There are other prominent features of the MAGA’s worldview, such as an emphasis on ethno-nationalism and civilisational dimensions of international relations. MAGA supporters are culturally conservative on issues relating to gender and religion, in addition to being sceptical of government promotion of green energy transition. MAGA supporters are committed to preserving Judeo-Christian civilisational values and do not advocate for secularism or pluralism.
These issues will appear more prominently in domestic settings and in America’s relations with Europe, but they also could serve as an irritant with the region insofar as America increases immigration enforcement and deportation of undocumented individuals of Southeast Asian descent.
Trump is not ideologically opposed to China and will not narrow his strategy for the region into attempting to organise an anti-China bloc.
MAGA vs ASEAN: a mismatch?
Overall, this brief survey leads to the conclusion that many, though not all, of the core tenets of the MAGA worldview will overlap uneasily with Southeast Asia’s foreign policy orientation.
There will be a tension between the region’s export-driven growth model and America’s drive for rebalancing global trade flows. Traditional security challenges, such as the South China Sea dispute, will garner less prioritisation from the Trump administration than core grievances around globalisation, economic nationalism, and upholding sovereignty.
Trump is not ideologically opposed to China and will not narrow his strategy for the region into attempting to organise an anti-China bloc. He will try to place “America First”, and he will seek to do so by focusing on resisting globalism, promoting economic nationalism, strengthening sovereignty and respecting cultural conservatism.
This article was first published in Fulcrum, ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute’s blogsite.
